KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would have released a report linking Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to the Bumiputera Malaysia Finance Limited (BMF) scandal much sooner if it wanted to “demonise” him, said Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak.
The communications and multimedia minister added that the spy agency would not have waited over 30 years to declassify the report if it wanted to attack Dr Mahathir.
“They would have done it when he was still prime minister and not now when he is no longer important to the US,” he wrote in a blog entry last night.
Salleh also pointed out that the document was only a small part of the 800,000 files that the CIA declassified and made available online.
Secret documents are frequently declassified after time, he explained.
“Some, of course, remain classified forever. But for Mahathir to suggest the CIA declassified 13 million pages of documents just so that they can leak two pages related to BMF aimed at demonising him is ludicrous,” he concluded.
In the report released by the CIA last week, the agency said Mahathir’s administration was likely as it affected his leadership in Umno and Barisan Nasional then.
The former prime minister yesterday alleged that theme of the report was retaliation by the US over his overt criticism of the country’s policies.
He also questioned why the document was only released now when the BMF scandal, which cost the country billions, took place in the 1980s.
